


Change the weather, Change your luck

by rosa_himmelblau



Series: The Roadhouse Blues [50]
Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:42:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29315775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: It was just a simple misunderstanding.
Series: The Roadhouse Blues [50]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1069713





	Change the weather, Change your luck

"This city's turning into a fucking lunatic asylum," Sonny muttered as he came into the apartment, slamming the door behind him. "What do you know about replacing a car window?"

That sounded like a non sequitur, but Sonny didn't talk in non sequiturs, so Vinnie just answered the question. "Get me the glass and the tools, I can do it for you. What happened to your window?"

Sonny nodded toward the door. "C'm'on."

Vinnie got up off the sofa and followed Sonny down to the parking garage, to Sonny's parking space. The window on the driver's side was a silvery cobweb of broken glass. It looked as though it had been shot out, but the hole in the center was awfully big.

"Were you in the car when this happened?" Vinnie asked. He was trying to figure the caliber, but his mind was drawing a blank.

"Yeah, stopped at a light." Sonny opened the door and pointed at the inside of the passenger-side door. "Look in there."

Vinnie did. There was a ball bearing the size of a cherry tomato embedded in the leather seat, just below the window.

"What happened?" Vinnie asked, and he knew he was the one who had asked because he could hear his own voice echoing in his ears. _Roger._

"What do you mean, what happened? Some creep broke my window with a ball bearing! I was sitting at a stoplight, and just as I leaned over to change the radio—you got the worst taste in music, you know that?" Sonny grabbed him suddenly, pulled him back, stopping Vinnie from leaning further into the car. "Watch it, you're gonna cut yourself. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, fine." And again Vinnie heard his own voice echoing. Roger.

"Yeah, sure." But Sonny was watching him sharply. "You feeling sick again?"

"Yeah, I'm feeling sick," Vinnie agreed, grabbing that excuse. "I think I ought'a go back upstairs."

The rode back up in the elevator, Sonny still watching him, his hand on Vinnie's arm. "Did you eat lunch?" He glanced at his watch.

"What time is it?" Vinnie asked.

Sonny smiled at him. "Nearly two. Did you eat lunch or not?"

Vinnie shook his head. "Wasn't feeling hungry."

Sonny started to say something, then just shrugged, letting it go. "Hell, maybe I ought'a just sell the car," he muttered. "It was already making that noise."

There was a silence. Vinnie was supposed to say there wasn't any noise—because there **wasn't** any noise—only he didn't, he was thinking about ball bearings, and Roger, and Roger and ball bearings.

But he noticed the silence just in time to miss it, to hear Sonny sigh and say, "Never get up all the glass anyway. Hey." Sonny touched Vinnie's cheek. "Vinnie. Relax. It's **my** car I wanna sell, not yours."

Vinnie forced himself to smile. "Take more than a broken window and an imaginary noise to get me to give up my car."

Sonny rolled his eyes, but he seemed relieved. "Give it up? You'd have to divorce the damn thing to get rid of it, and probably pay it alimony."

They got off the elevator, walked the short distance down the hall to the apartment.

"Why don'tcha lay down for a while?" Sonny suggested when the door was closed behind them. "You look like you're gonna start puking again."

Vinnie just nodded and went to his bedroom, and shut the door. Roger. _It **was** Roger, wasn't it? Of course it was Roger, it had to be Roger. Who else thinks the ball bearing companies make a weapon second only to a Heckler & Koch? Nobody, not just nobody I know, but **nobody anywhere.** It was Roger who tried to kill Sonny; the only question is why._

Vinnie wanted to go out and find Roger, but Sonny would want to know where he was going, and no matter where he was going, Sonny wouldn't want him to go alone, since he'd made the mistake of showing how upset he was, and then had to cover by faking a relapse of the flu he'd just gotten over. It could wait 'til morning, except that until this was settled he couldn't let Sonny go out by himself, and he couldn't explain why. Hell, he couldn't explain why even if he wanted to, since why was the one thing he didn't know.

After an hour of pacing and talking to himself under his breath, Vinnie left the bedroom, went in the bathroom, washed his face, then went back into the living room.

"You feeling better?" Sonny asked, not looking up from his newspaper. He'd very quickly grown bored with Vinnie's being sick, and the idea of a repeat performance didn't seem to hold any charm for him.

"Yeah, a lot. I think maybe I've got cabin fever. I'm gonna go out, get that window fixed."

Now Sonny looked at him. "You up to that?"

"Sure, it's not hard work, and I think getting outta here'll do me some good. Maybe once I get it fixed, I'll drive around a while, just get some fresh air. I'll pick up dinner on the way back."

"Don't bother, there's food in the house," which was Sonny's way of saying he'd cook something. His attention was already back on the paper. 

"Keys?" Vinnie asked, and Sonny waved a hand at the table by the door, where his key ring lay.

"You got money?" Sonny asked when Vinnie was almost out the door.

"Yeah, I'm good." And he shut the door.

Not the first pay phone he saw, or the second—Vinnie had to be sure Sonny didn't see him using it, not that Sonny could possibly see him doing anything since Sonny was back in the apartment, probably still reading the paper. He didn't have a car to follow Vinnie in—Vinnie's own keys were in his pocket, and that was even if Sonny wanted to follow Vinnie, which he didn't because he had no idea anything was going on; he thought his car window had been the victim of the strange random violence of a strange city.

Still, not the third pay phone either. Vinnie kept driving, past the glass place, well past it, until he found a pay phone in a neighborhood neither he nor Sonny had ever been in. This subterfuge was a complete waste of time, there was nothing to worry about.

 _Yeah, nothing, unless you counted Roger being out there someplace wanting to kill Sonny—and **why**? It doesn't make any sense, but who else could it possibly be, what were the odds it could be anybody else? What the fuck is going on? _ Vinnie didn't know, but he had something else in his pocket, something he'd gotten out of the glove compartment of his own car, and one way or the other he was going to fix this problem.

Vince tried to get his wildly swirling thoughts under control, but he wasn't having much success. If he couldn't get a hold of Roger, or if he did and couldn't call him off, Vinnie was going to have to tell Sonny something—the question was, what? Sonny knew very little about that part of his life. Vinnie figured the less he said about Roger, the fewer lies he'd have to tell about him. A guy Vinnie had known years ago wanted to kill Sonny because—? Since Vinnie didn't know, what he could he possibly say to Sonny that wouldn't lead him to the wrong conclusion? Particularly since he'd told Sonny Roger was dead.

He punched in the number he'd memorized all those years ago, and when the machine picked up, he left a message: **What the fuck are you doing?** and slammed the receiver down hard. He could have been more succinct—by two words—but his adrenaline was high and he wanted to be sure Roger knew it.

Vinnie stood at the pay phone for a few minutes, breathing hard, then he called the number again. This time his message was the name of a bar down the block from the glass supply place. Then he hung up the receiver, got into Sonny's car, and drove.

He bought the glass and added an extra fifty for the use of the tools to put it in. The guy behind the counter, one of the owners, quirked an eyebrow at this. "Don't want to go home with it broken?" he asked, and Vinnie smiled and agreed, not wanting to explain. The guy told him where he could park to do the work, and pointed out the pay vacuum to clean out the glass shards. "But you're never gonna get them all out," he said, smirking, knowing that whoever Vinnie was trying to fool at home wasn't going to be fooled for very long.

"Yeah, no kidding," Vince agreed. The guy he was trying to fool was pretty easy, really. But Vinnie wasn't planning on trying. He had another solution, if talking to Roger didn't do the trick, and it didn't involve telling Sonny about his dead friend, Roger.

He parked the car in back of the shop and started to work taking the car door apart. _I got no idea how often he checks that number. At least I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who has it—_

 _What difference does that make?_ Vinnie couldn't come up with an answer to that question, so he put it out of his mind. _Finish up here, head over to the bar, and wait. And if he's not there by the time the bar closes, I come back tomorrow. How I'm going to keep Sonny from going out tomorrow, I don't know—I can't force him to come with me to the bar, and even if I could, what would I tell him when Roger showed up? If Roger doesn't show, maybe I'll go back without the car, say there's something wrong with it besides the window—maybe that I'm having that imaginary noise checked out—then tomorrow I could tell Sonny that he can stay home, I'll spend the day out—that could work, that would work—_

But it didn't come to that. Roger showed just as Vince was using the vac to clean the glass up from around the car. He watched Roger stand there, squinting at him, hands on his hips, looking as though he was trying to remember Vinnie's name. Vinnie ignored him, opening the car door to check for more glass, shallowly slicing his palm in the process.

"Careful," was the first thing Roger said. Vinnie continued ignoring him, sucking at the line of blood. "You all right?"

"I cut my hand, Spanky, it's not like I slit my wrist." He got hold of a piece of glass, dropped it on the ground, felt around for more.

"That's not what I meant."

"Yeah, well, maybe you better explain what you meant."

"You haven't been dead lately, have you?" Even for Roger, that was a weird question.

"'Scuse me?" Vince popped another handful of quarters in the vac, postponing the conversation while he gave the inside of the car a last going-over.

When it shut off, Roger said, "Late. Deceased. Pushing up daisies. You haven't been an un-fed, have you, V—" 

Vince interrupted him. "No more so than usual. You got a pocket knife?" Before Roger could answer, Vinnie tossed him a screwdriver. "Never mind. Use this."

"What'm I doing with this?" Roger asked. Vinnie enjoyed having confused Roger for once.

"Dig out the ball bearing that somehow got imbedded in the seat. I gotta sit over there, and it doesn't look very comfortable."

Roger was still squinting at him. Vinnie hung up the vac hose, then he boosted himself up on the hood. Roger was still just squinting at him. "This place isn't open all night, you know." He'd have lit a cigarette, but he didn't have one.

Once he got to work on it, it only took Roger a few minutes to get the ball bearing dug out. "Anything else you need?" He was standing in front of Vince, tossing the ball bearing lightly from hand to hand.

Vince grabbed it out of the air and stuck it in his pocket. "Get in the car."

Roger got in. Vinnie started the car and pulled out, belatedly checking to if there was anything coming, but the silver Lexus that he'd cut off had swerved out of his way.

When they'd left the glass place behind them, Vince asked very softly, "What the fuck do you think you're doing? And don't try to pretend it wasn't you, this's got your name all over it. Who else looks at a ball bearing and thinks 'lethal weapon'?"

"Have you talked to Frank lately?" Roger asked. Roger had been known to have entire conversations in non sequiturs, so who knew what this was?

"No, Rog, I haven't talk to Frank lately, not since last May. Are you trying to tell me **Frank** wanted you to kill Sonny, because I'm not buying that. Even if he did, you wouldn't do it just because Frank wanted it done." Vinnie didn't add that that was as nuts as Sonny thinking Rudy had ordered Frank to kill **him**.

"I've seen Frank," Roger said quietly. "He told me you were dead."

That didn't compute. "What?"

"Frank. A couple weeks ago I made my yearly visit, to tell him there'd been no progress in finding you. He told me your body had washed up on the Jersey shore. He'd I.D.'d it himself. He was acting weird, like it didn't matter. I thought it was shock, or that he'd permanently flipped out. And since I knew you'd been using your body recently, I figured it had to have been Steelgrave, some kind of Sicilian vendetta thing. I flew out here, watched your place for a while, but you were nowhere to be seen, I called and knocked—"

"The flu," Vince interrupted. He was clutching the steering wheel as hard as he could, to keep his hands from shaking. He saw a parking place and pulled into it, ignoring the honking, and the guy who called him an asshole. He turned off the engine. "I've had the flu, been laid up for the last ten days. Nobody ever calls or comes over so I didn't bother to get out of bed." He was feeling sick, but not the kind of sick he'd been with the flu.

Roger nodded distantly. "He knew where you were? Frank did?"

"He knew I was alive." Vinnie tried to peel his hands off the steering wheel, but he wasn't having much luck. He wanted to bang his head against it; maybe that would make the dizziness go away. Finally he managed to unclench his fists and turn off the engine. "I didn't tell him I was going back to Sonny, since I wasn't sure I was."

"He knew **I** knew." Roger seemed genuinely spooked. "He was telling me I could quit stringing him along, the pretense is over, you may now resume your previously scheduled life. I read him completely wrong." Roger gave a rueful half-laugh. "Just a little misunderstanding of unfathomed proportions."

Vinnie was angry in a whole new way, angry at Roger and not at Roger, at Frank, at—at the universe, at the whole situation that had his friends talking to each other in codes even they didn't understand. He scrubbed his eyes with his knuckles. "So Frank crosses you off his Christmas card list and Sonny nearly buys the farm. That's just great, Rog." Roger made no attempt to defend himself; that wasn't Roger's style. Vince put his hand in his jacket pocket and took out the twenty-two he'd gotten from his glove compartment. "And you came pretty close to it yourself."

Roger took the gun from his hand. "You're kidding, right? What's this, an anniversary present from Steelgrave, something to hang on your charm bracelet?"

"I'm not trying to impress anyone, Rog. I can use any kind of gun I want."

"But a hooker's gun, Vince? You were going to shoot me with a hooker's gun? If the itsy-bitsy bullet didn't do the job, the humiliation would have killed us both."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, very funny. Now I want you to listen to me." Roger was doing what he did best, slipping away while sitting right there. "Spanky, you do glib better'n anybody I know, you live detached from your life, and you seem OK that way. But I've gotta be actively engaged in how I'm living. And now I am."

"Still no Hallmark card," Roger observed.

"Yeah, well, not even in the land of hills and the orange bridge does Hallmark sell a card that fits my relationship with Sonny."

"And are you still getting your daily recommended allowance of stewardesses?" The way Roger asked the question made Vinnie feel like he was taking his temperature.

"No, no more stewardesses. I put an end to that, along with any other third party sleepovers. By the way, you were real helpful in that."

" **I** was?" Roger asked, and Vince glanced over to see the not-understanding that played in his voice showed on his face, too.

Vinnie didn't explain. His anger and fear were receding, leaving behind emotions that felt like the trash the tide leaves behind: petulance and impatience, and keeping Roger confused felt really good. None of this was his fault, but it wouldn't keep him awake at night if he thought Vinnie was unjustly pissed at him.

"Well, if convincing Steelgrave you're the girl of his dreams was what you wanted to do, congratulations. I hope you're very happy together."

That was just to cover the confusion, but Vince decided not to let it pass. "You know, Rog, the reason it's so easy for you to sit there and take pot shots at my life is that you've never told me how you spend your days and nights. I know you're not working for the government, so what's the big mystery? It can't be because you're afraid to share, can it, Rog?"

Roger pointed the twenty-two at the glove compartment. "Tink! Tink! Tink! You should take this to the amusement park, Buckwheat, take down a few ducks with it, win Steelgrave a big stuffed bunny."

"Roger," Vince said. He knew Roger was upset about the mistake he'd made, he knew this was his way of displacing that feeling, but if he didn't quit it, Vince was going to punch him.

"If I'd had this instead of the ball bearing, Steelgrave would've thought someone was throwing pebbles at his window."

"Hey!" Vinnie took the gun away from him and shoved it back in his pocket. "That happens to be the model preferred by made guys for the assassination of a friend. So when you make fun of my gun, you make fun of my heritage. Cut it out, or I'll have to start speaking Italian to you."

Roger chuckled. "You were really going to do it?"

"If I had to," Vinnie said. "If it was the only way to stop you."

That got through to Roger. "So you've officially plighted your trough to Steelgrave? You're in a lot better shape than the last time I saw you."

"A lot's happened since the last time you saw me," Vince agreed.

"Yeah, you're ready to kill for him. That's something you wouldn't do even when you were working for him."

Vince didn't bother correcting Roger. He **would** have killed to save Sonny, even when he was trying to put him in prison. He wouldn't have killed, and still wouldn't kill, to avenge him. It wasn't a matter of morals, it was just that he didn't believe it would make things better.

Roger was looking at him strangely, asking things he wasn't saying.

"Listen, I had no idea what was going on except that you'd tried to kill Sonny. For all I knew, you'd just flipped out." And before Roger could say any more, he added, "But now that I see you're only as crazy as you were the last time I saw you, let's get one thing straight. This is never gonna happen again."

Roger started to say something—maybe it was only to ask how likely it was that these circumstances could ever remotely repeat themselves, but Vince interrupted him. "I want your **word,** Roger. I don't care if you find my body with a confession written in Sonny's blood stapled to my forehead, you stay out of it. What's between Sonny and me is between us. I'm not Frank's problem anymore, and I'm not yours, either." Maybe his words would sound harsh to an outsider, but Vinnie knew Roger: saying it straight out, in simple, declarative sentences, was the only way to go.

Roger was looking at him with an amazingly open affection. "So you're OK now?"

"I'm fine, Rog. I'm just fine."

"You know if you need—"

"No. No more parachutes, no more emergency exits. I'm a grown man, I can take care of myself. I'm with Sonny. I'm gonna stay with Sonny. I don't need anybody waiting in the wings to rescue me."

Roger nodded, then reached over to squeeze the back of Vince's neck. "Then I'll just get out here," he said, and opened the car door.

Neither one of them said goodbye. Vinnie restarted the engine and nosed the car into traffic. He glanced over at Roger and saw he was standing on the corner, lighting a cigarette.

When he looked in his rearview mirror, Roger was gone.


End file.
